... Black spot rot caused by Alternaria alternata is becoming a main postharvest disease on apple fruit. The objective of this study was to elucidate the antifungal efficiency of ursolic acid (UA) against A. alternata and its application in preserving apple fruit. The results showed that UA induced disturbance of membrane permeability and integrity, as well as intracellular ROS accumulation in A. alte ...

... Regular cropping is important for improving fruit quality and profitability of the apple (Malus x domestica Borkh.) orchards. To identify a thinning target that makes the rate of flower-bud formation constant every year, we investigated the relationship between crop load (CL) and the rate of flower-bud formation (RF) and developed a model to predict the change of the RF according to the CL. Becaus ...

... Apple image segmentation based on convex hull center priori and Markov adsorption chain is proposed in this paper. First, the convex hull, containing Harris points of interest, is approximated as a significant target area. Significant measurements were performed using convex hull center priori to obtain a preliminary saliency map with binary segmentation. Foreground points in the salient region we ...

... Calcium (Ca) deficiency in apples results in unwanted physical disorders in mature fruit that reduce fruit value. Ca deficiency associated with bitter pit is already prevalent early in the season, as it is initiated a few weeks after full bloom. Information regarding Ca concentration in reproductive buds or bud tissues is lacking, thus we investigated the Ca concentration in reproductive buds of t ...

... Rootstocks are used in commercial apple (Malus ×domestica Borkh.) orchards to create dwarf trees that are highly precocious, but there are gaps in understanding how soil fertility management practices may affect soil health, tree nutrient status, plant associated soil microbial communities, and orchard productivity when different rootstock genotypes are used. For three consecutive years, we tested ...

... Apple replant disease (ARD) is a soil-borne disease that negatively effacts tree growth and reduces the yields in replanted orchards. We aimed to determine whether the addition of biochar to replant soil could promote plant growth by improving the soil environment. Biochar was added to apple replant soil at 0, 5, 20, or 80 g kg−1, and its effects on Malus hupehensis Rehd. seedling growth and on th ...

... In the apple industry, the improvement of apple fruit aroma and polyphenol content has always been an important goal of breeding. In this study, pollination experiments of ‘Yan 3 Fuji’, ‘Indo’ and ‘Ryokano kisetsu’ apples were carried out by using pollen grains of quince (Cydonia oblonga Mill.). The results indicated that single fruit weight, fruit firmness, vitamin C content, sugar-acid ratio, to ...

... Replant disease, also described as soil decline, is known for centuries; yet the ultimate causes remain unknown. After repeated growing of the same plant species, the soil loses its capacity to support the growth of plants of the respective species. Replant disease is characterized by a poor vegetative development, stunted growth and reduced yield in terms of quantity and quality. A growing concer ...

... This work tests the possibility to monitor fruit growth as a potential physiological indicator for tree water status and productive performance in apple, for potential implementation in decision support systems for irrigation scheduling. Starting from 10 weeks after full bloom (WAFB), a wide range of plant water statuses was induced in a “Gala” apple orchard by applying different shading (with red ...

... Planting density increasing with the use of dwarf rootstocks it is a fact that has changed the scenario of the pome culture in Brazil. The objective of this work was to evaluate the plant growth, productivity and fruit quality of the Fuji Suprema cultivar grafted on the rootstocks G.213 and M.9 in a new area (virgin soil) and in the replanting area of apple trees in Vacaria City in Rio Grande do S ...

... Studies of gene function in apple fruits (Malus domestica) have been hindered by the long juvenile period of apple fruit trees. Transient gene expression is a relatively simple method for gene functional analyses, and has been broadly applied to several plant species; however, few studies have reported a method for systematic transient expression in apple fruits. Here, we developed a highly effici ...

... Despite fruit seeds being considered fruit waste, they have good potential in human diet. The present research investigated the levels of bioactive compounds (phenolics and cyanogenic glycosides) in apple seeds of the cultivar ‘Golden Delicious’ grown in four different orchards in the world and their change over the course of 8 months of storage. Both phenolics and cyanogenic glycosides certainly ...

... Apple storage under extremely low oxygen concentrations, as in dynamic controlled atmosphere, changes both aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. In this work we evaluated the effects of controlled atmosphere (CA) and dynamic controlled atmosphere based on respiratory quotient (DCA – RQ), with RQ 1.3 and RQ 1.5, on the dynamics of pyruvic acid, sugars, anaerobic metabolites and enzymes involved in anae ...

... Fertilization is a way to feed the fruit trees promoting their growth, production and fruit quality. However, many factors are involved in the process from uptake to allocation and utilization of the nutrients by leaves and fruits. In this study, the effect of different environment under grey hail nets in combination with various fertilization and irrigation management on growth, production, fruit ...

... Bitter pit is a physiological disorder that can develop during storage and result in major economic losses of susceptible apple cultivars such as ‘Honeycrisp’. Prediction methods to determine the risk of disorder development have focused primarily on mineral composition of the fruit, but there has also been interest in non-mineral based methods. In this study, we have compared non-mineral methods ...

... It is appropriate for near-large fruit to be the first target of single-arm harvesting robot based on machine vision in each operation. The work introduced a method to obtain the near-large fruit from apple image in orchard. Firstly, the R-channel and G-channel images of orchard apple RGB (Red, Green, Blue) images were operated by the adaptive Gamma correction method to overcome the influence of n ...

... The aim of this research is to explore apple quality responses to water stress during the fruit growing season in seven-year-old potted ‘Gala’ (Malus domestica Borkh.) trees. Three irrigation levels were applied, including normal irrigation (CK, 70–80%θf), light water stress (LS, 60–70%θf), medium water stress (MS, 50%-60%θf), θf: field capacity. In stage Ⅰ, water stress was applied from stage of ...

... Maximum frost hardiness (FHmax) during dormancy is one key determinant for growth and productivity of woody horticultural plants in northern latitudes. Even though woody plants are known to be competent to reach FHmax when preconditioned at low temperatures in late autumn, it is not known the proper temperature to reach FHmax for different species and cultivars. That knowledge is needed for their ...

... Fruit export is an important economic activity for Chile. Therefore, high productivity and quality fruit is a must in order to succeed in the business. A 6-year project was carried out to assess apple cultivars (‘Galaxy’, ‘Brookfield®Gala’, ‘Super Chief’, ‘Fuji Raku Raku’, ‘Braeburn’, ‘Granny Smith’, and ‘Cripps Pink’) and rootstock’s (M.M.106 and M.9 EMLA) performance across different Chilean app ...

... Recently ozone has been used to decrease postharvest disease in different fruits. The effects of different pre-storage ozone treatments combined with cold storage on concentrations of triterpenes, phenolic compounds as well as quality attributes in two apple cultivars, ‘Amorosa’ and ‘Santana’, were investigated. The results showed that overall the changes caused by ozone treatment were within the ...